This invention relates to rendering a medical image, and more particularly, to a setting, saving, and reusing technology for rendering a medical image with the use of three-dimensional data collected by a medical imaging machine such as a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine (nuclear magnetic resonance image diagnostic machine) or a computed tomography (CT) machine.
The sophistication in the function of medical imaging machines such as MRI machines and CT machines in recent years has made collecting sectional images in large quantity possible. Medical image display devices, too, have been sophisticated in function, which has brought about an increase in speed and precision in the generation of three-dimensional data from sectional images, the rendering of a medical image from the three-dimensional data, and image processing on the medical image.
When interpreting a medical image (namely, making a diagnosis based on a medical image), selecting an appropriate method of rendering a medical image and adjusting a rendering parameter properly are necessary in order to facilitate the identification of a focus site. Executing this processing efficiently requires formulating information about the method of rendering and the rendering parameter (hereinafter referred to as rendering settings) into a pattern, and saving and reusing the settings pattern. It is also requested to improve the ease of understanding of a medical image and the precision of medical image interpretation by combining a plurality of rendering settings patterns flexibly and thus rendering a compositive medical image.
With regard to reusing a rendering settings pattern, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2001-291090 proposes a three-dimensional image display device that facilitates the pattern formulation and reproduction of image processing for creating a three-dimensional image, image diagnosis based on the three-dimensional image, treatment planning, and the like.
As a method of rendering an image by combining a plurality of rendering settings patterns, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2008-119252 proposes a method in which a plurality of display characteristics curves independent of one another are set to a part of an image that is within an observation target area, and are reflected at once. Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2007-135843 proposes a method of generating and displaying an image in an area of interest and in other areas for which different rendering methods are used.